The present invention generally relates to medication dispensing, and particularly relates to a pill dispensing assembly for dispensing pills from a pill bottle.
Prescription drugs abuse has become an increasingly severe societal problem, and has in some instances surpassed abuse of more common street drugs. In particular, abuse of prescription painkillers has been problematic. Several states have already created prescription drug abuse databases to track the frequency with which individuals fill prescriptions for certain prescription medications, and even to track over the counter purchase of medications, such as pseudoephedrine, which are known to be used as ingredients in abused street drugs.
Although pharmacies can track how often prescriptions are filled, and can control an amount of pills given to a patient with dosing, they cannot ensure that the patient doesn't disregard a dosing schedule and ingest an excess quantity of pills at a given time. Pharmacies also cannot ensure that patients, caretakers or other people with access to patient medication do not divert prescription drugs for abuse or illegal sale.
Particularly in cases where patients have known history of abusing narcotics, it is desirable to prevent those patients from engaging in prescription drug abuse. To date, pharmacies have relied on “childproof” bottle caps and other cap designs to prevent inappropriate access to medication. However these caps do not control/monitor individual pill dispensing, and therefore do not effectively address any of the issues discussed above.